Annie Lennox will be featured at the May 25 birthday celebration; her installation is on exhibit now. NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Mass MoCA's holding holding a summerlong birthday celebration to mark its 20th year with performances, installations, and the return of the Solid Sound Festival. Headlining the birthday bash on May 25 will be Annie Lennox and The Pretenders will make an appearance on July 26 for a benefit concert. The museum will also host a public block party that day and a week free admission earlier May for Berkshire County residents. Joseph Thompson, who's been director of Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art since the

It's just not fair. The lady preteens and barely teens who attended a showing of "After," presumably to look into the crystal ball and commiserate with future peer, Tessa Young, left it all to me. I was to see what was to be with the gal who embarks on her college career and that first real love. They were much too busy chattering, texting or running back and forth to either the concession stand or the powder room to pay any attention to Katherine Langford's decent but a tad treacly portrayal of the girl next door turned co-ed. Oh well, I figured, perhaps they read writer Anna Todd's "After" series on Wattpad, whatever that is, and were only in

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — When Williamstown author Ali Benjamin started thinking about a follow-up to her 2015 middle-grade novel "The Thing About Jellyfish," she struggled to find the right topic and the right tone.

"Jellyfish," while a beautiful story about a young girl's journey of self-discovery, is, after all, a story about the death of a child. Benjamin had planned her next book around the issue of gun violence, but in the years following the release of "Jellyfish," real life seemed too dark in many ways to pick another tough topic.

"I finally said to my editor, 'I don't think I can do the book we have been talking about,'

Here's what drives me crazy. Mostly everyone you and I know has been brought up on a steady motion picture diet of morality tales like this latest version of Disney's "Dumbo," based on the studio's 1941, animated delve into the wiles and munificence of human nature. All the good lessons concerning proper human behavior are therein contained. And yet, look at some of these uncaring, inconsiderate curmudgeons young and old sharing the planet with us. This week I'm particularly down on the 30-something, balding Wall Street dude, sunglasses-attired, who passes you on the right in his 3 series BMW and then celebrates his belligerence by giving you the

Rodgers watches as a student learns hands on about Leonardo Da Vinci machines. PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Museum is a place you can grow up in, according to Jeff Rodgers. Rodgers is the new executive director of the museum and started his new gig on Monday. He comes in the wake of a controversial period of the 116-year-old museum's history when museum officials sold off nearly two dozen pieces of its collection to raise $53 million. The sale of the art spurred significant backlash and tore a rift in the community. For Rodgers, that's in the past. As his first week comes to an end, his goal is to build the inter-disciplinary experience at the

Point of disclosure: Save for classics like "Dracula" (1931) and "Frankenstein" (1931), I'm a scaredy-cat when it comes to horror films. I'm not simply afraid of them, but rather, in the parlance of childhood, "a-scared'"of them. That is, until now. Gripping my armrests in anticipation of a body-elevating jolt whilst viewing film auteur Jordan Peale's "Us," his unconnected followup to the highly praised "Get Out" (2017), the epiphany dawned on me. Having lived through the last two years of the real-life horror that has masqueraded as American politics, I am immunized. Any fiction purporting to be horror pales in

SAT Artist Panel & Artswalk Information Session Lichtenstein Center for the Arts will host a FREE event with a panel of local artists who will speak about their experiences as artists in the Berkshires and beyond. They'll answer questions about navigating the arts scene, networking in the artist community, marketing, how to prepare for an exhibition and more.

First Fridays Artswalk will have representatives on hand to speak specifically about Artswalk and how to get involved! New, aspiring, professional, amateur, student, teen and veteran artists are invited to come network and be part of the discussion. Spanish

My mother was beautiful. Not just pretty, but beautiful. At family gatherings, it was inevitably brought up: Who is more beautiful, Dora or Elizabeth Taylor? It was Mom's cue to blush, although she kept serving and rarely sat down. Intentionally or not, her splendor impacted nearly every aspect of our lives. Whether taken to the shoe store or a visit to the doctor, it was a given: A beautiful woman had just walked into the room. People like beautiful. It fascinates them, whether wondering what it must be like to be beautiful or intellectually deliberating just what it is that makes one beautiful. Here's why I raise the subject. Inarguably beautiful Julianne Moore

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The five dancers glided around the room, its purple-and-mirrored walls enclosing a faintly muggy space, either from powerful bodies working hard or a late-winter heating system still cranked up, or maybe a combination of both.

The three women and two men were rehearsing a dance for an upcoming showcase at Williams College, but on this day, their ballet slipper-clad feet pounded the dance floor in the second-floor studio of the Albany Berkshire Ballet headquarters on Fenn Street.

In the past, on a weekday afternoon, that studio might very well have been silent. That's because it's only recently that the ballet company — officially celebrating 50